TheWashCycle

What DDOT can learn from SFMTA

SFMTA is the San Francisco Municipal Transit Authority. It just launched a new website. (hat tip) It's a little flashier than DDOT's, but they have organized their information a little better. You get links to a few modes of transportation and those take you to mode specific pages that let you pick from more choices. It's nice. DDOT's seems arbitrary. [And of course there's no mention of bikes on the front page].

Bush Blows it Again

So I thought it would happen. I thought he (pictured after a bike crash) was going to drop the "b" word in the State of the Union for the first time since 1903. The chance was right there. He was listing all the things he wants to do to achieve energy independence and he gets to this line

Let us build on the work we have done and reduce gasoline usage in the United States by 20 percent in the next ten years -- thereby cutting our total imports by the equivalent of three-quarters of all the oil we now import from the Middle East.

(I should point out that's a 20% reduction from projected 2017 gasoline usage - not 20% below today's use). He mentions alternative fuels, increasing fuel economy, increasing domestic production and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.  Then he ends with

America is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that will enable us to live our lives less dependent on oil.

And that's it. He missed it. A great technology already exists that can help reduce oil consumption (and improve health and air quality). It's called a bicycle. You ride one all the time. Maybe that's the problem, to him it's a fitness tool. But it would have been great to hear him drop one line like this, "We need to expand programs that encourage walkable and bikeable communities and pass a Bicycle Commuter's Act." Oh if only.

It's no surprise really, his transportation department's website's front page doesn't even have the word bicycle or bike on it. (Car shows up 3 times and truck twice). Now compare this to the Danes.

The ministry's new strategy, 'Drive on two wheels',...has the support of both the Danish People's Party and the Social Liberals - two parties traditionally found on opposing sides of political issues. The latter party has proposed a 10-year plan that allots some DKK 500 million for a cycling project.

The inspiration comes from a Norwegian study that indicated communities on the whole benefit from more cyclists. Figures from Norway's Institute for Transport Economics have proven that for every kroner invested in the promotion of cycling and the betterment of cyclists' conditions, the state earns three kroner back in the form of lower health expenses and less employee sick time.

I was just thinking how much I needed three kroners the other day.

Biking Empathy

Now that I ride Metro so much more, and take my bike on it, I find myself often using elevators and the handicapped turnstiles (HT). When with a bike on metro you basically find yourself following the same patterns as the handicapped. Usually this means down an elevator, through the HT set aside and then to another elevator. Since there's no choice about it, I often wonder why more thought wasn't used in designing the locations of these items. At New Carrollton, the HT is all the way across the mezzanine from the entrance and then the next elevator all the way back by the entrance. It makes for as long a trip as possible. Now, for me it's only a small inconvenience, but I'm often riding elevators with people in wheelchairs or on crutches and I get angry for them. (The same goes with curb cuts - just no thought about the easiest path).

I also find there are is shockingly large number of people, with seemingly no disability, who ride the elevator even though it's slower. I suspect that the more an elevator is used the more it fails - though I'm not sure - so it annoys me a little bit and I'm not the only one. I really think that Metro managers and board members should have to negotiate metro in a wheelchair one day a year - just so they get the feel for it and can understand how design impacts experience.

RPUS wrote about how being a cyclist has given him a better cyclist perspective. It'd be nice if DDOT employees were required to bike to work one day a year. Then they could avoid these kinds of problems which we've also experienced.

When the city removed some 160 parking meters on Newbury Street and replaced them with 23 boxy, multiple-space, computerized meters, cyclists found themselves without their habitual, if illegal, locking posts. Cyclists are complaining that officials haven't provided alternative places to park bikes, and now bicycles can be seen chained to trees, sign posts, wrought-iron fences and just about anything else skinny enough to get a bike lock around.

Stats

Carnegie Melon and AAA maintain a website with a lot of great transportation safety stats (It works better in explorer than firefox I found).

Calculations are made using information from two widely-used national databases, the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS). Combining information from these two sources provides access to travel-risk calculations that go far beyond what can be found elsewhere (either online or in print). Users can explore the travel risks for millions of different combinations of transportation modes, demographic variables, and a host of other parameters.

Comparing travel risks requires the calculation of risk measures, which TrafficSTATS in terms of fatalities per unit of exposure.  Just because a particular mode of travel has more fatalities associated with it, does not mean that it is riskier. In 2004, for example, there were 18,819 fatalities for vehicle occupants in passenger cars compared to 3,779 motorcycle fatalities. With five times more deaths in cars, do cars present a greater fatality risk than motorcycles? No! Because passenger cars are driven much more than motorcycles, their risk per 100 million miles traveled is 1.05, whereas there are 32.61 deaths per 100 million passenger miles on motorcycles.

So how does cycling measure up? Well first of all they combine biking and walking into one category. Oh that irks me. The two have little in common. They aren't done in the same place (sidewalk/street). They go at different speeds. Cyclists wear safety gear (or should). Cyclists signal (or should). It's totally different. Anyway, you can break it out. Here's how the modes break down (I've eliminated some).

Mode       Fatalities per 100 million person miles

 

School Bus               0.02
Charter/tour bus        0.12
Commuter bus  0.24
Van   0.44
SUV          0.82
Other truck  1.03
Car         1.04
Pickup truck  1.12
Bicycle   5.58
Walk   19.73
Motorcycle  31.91

That's nationwide for all users. It gets worse when you separate bicyclists from "other cyclists" (Whatever that is. Is that unicyclists? kids riding in carriers?) It doubles to 11.11 F/100mpm. It goes up again to 11.46 when we consider only our region and drops back to 11.16 when we eliminate those under 21. Yikes. That's still bad. If we want to get more people cycling, we have to find ways to make it safer than that (if you believe the numbers - which come partly from an automobile association). England is having similar safety problems:

bicycle fatalities rose 10 percent to 148 in 2005, the most recent statistics available, and were the only mode of transportation in Britain to show an increase in deaths.

Thanks to Marginal Revolution for the link.

They'll have to make wider bike lanes

This is something called a hyperbike. The inventor claims it easily goes 50mph. Even NASA is interested in it.

DeForest tried to remedy the flaws of the standard bicycle. For one thing, it has no seat; the rider stands upright. Also, the arms are used for additional power. DeForest describes pedaling the HyperBike as "swimming on dry land." Motor vehicle speeds of at least fifty miles per hour are easily attained.

The wheels are sixty-four inches apart at the road surface and only twenty-six inches apart at the top of their eight-foot diameter; racing wheelchairs also use heavily cambered wheels.

One of the most interesting differences lies in the greater stability of the HyperBike. A conventional bicycle has the center of gravity higher than the spinning axis of the wheels. The HyperBike positions the rider in such a way as to put the center of gravity below the wheel axis.

There's no word on whether or not it's only for Robert Plant backup singers as the photos suggest.

Forest Glen Bike/Ped Bridge is unsafe

After opening to much fanfare, the Forest Glen bike/ped bridge has turned out to be a mugger's dream.

Since the bridge opened in August, linking walkers to the Forest Glen Metro stop north of the Beltway, there have been three armed robberies, two at gunpoint and one with a knife.

It seems taking the bridge under the beltway, instead of over like the North Bethesda Trail, is the source of the problem.

the section that runs for about one-tenth of a mile under the Beltway is dark, has places where a would-be mugger could lie in wait, and is so noisy from the traffic above that cries for help would be drowned out, police said.

So when I said I'd like them to do this at New Carrollton, I meant the Beltway crossing, not the death-trap aspect. Sadly, Jane Jacobs could have seen this coming (emphasis mine)...

"A well-used city street is apt to be a safe street. A deserted city street is apt to be unsafe.  But how does this work, really? And what makes a city street well used or shunned?  ... A city street equipped to handle strangers, and to make a safety asset, in itself, out of the presence of strangers, as the streets of successful city neighborhoods always do, must have three main qualities:

"First, there must be a clear demarcation between what is public space and what is private space.

"Second, there must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street. The buildings on a street equipped to handle strangers and to insure the safety of both residents and strangers, must be oriented to the street.  They cannot turn their back or blank sides on it and leave it blind.

"And third, the sidewalk must have users on it fairly continuously, both to add to the number of effective eyes on the street and to induce the people in buildings along the street to watch the sidewalks in sufficient numbers.  Nobody enjoys sitting on a stoop or looking out a window at an empty street. ... Large numbers of people entertain themselves, off and on, by watching street activity.

She's talking about streets, but it's applicable to this as well. In an article the next day it was pointed out that the designers of the bridge foresaw the safety problems as well.

county officials recognize that they did not sufficiently heed concerns about pedestrian safety on the bridge.

It seems the problem is a combination of the difficulty of the site and ADA requirements. Still I wonder if they couldn't have lifted the whole thing over the highway. Some solutions for this project were proposed.

Better lighting could be installed within a few weeks, said Timothy Cupples, who supervised the project.

Police and public works officials also are considering adding cameras and call boxes. Residents offered to set up community patrols on the bridge and suggested that the county think about creating a webcast of the bridge

Which might help to get more "eyes upon the street." Also long term solutions were devised for this type of project in the future.

Johnston said county officials also now realize they may need to change their procedures so police and other public safety officials are consulted as early as possible when projects are being designed.

Finally, who are these people fighting off gun wielding thieves? They either have more of something - or less of something - than me. If I tried that, I'd either be killed by the thief, or by my mom when she found out.

Mount Vernon Trail Bike Attacks

The man who attacked as many as 15 people on the Mt. Vernon Trail with his mountain bike was sentenced last week to nearly two years in prison.

Johnson, of no fixed address, had been riding his bike until he dismounted and began walking, according to court documents. Near Hoffermair Drive in the vicinity of Reagan National Airport, he began swinging the bike at other riders and punching them as they rode past, documents said.

And again they cracked out this old chestnut...

As many as 1 million people annually use the Mount Vernon Trail, which runs along an 18.5-mile route through Fairfax and Arlington counties and Alexandria. Concerns have grown in recent years about the increasing number of bike commuters and excessive speeding.

Even though this incident has nothing to do with numbers or speeding. But I suppose it's good for "Increasing numbers of bike commuters" to be reported often when it comes time to ask for changes in law, education, facilities and such.

[I'm so not hip, I didn't realize that This Bike is a Pipe Bomb is the name of a band until just now. I just thought it was something cool to put on your bike].

DC Snacks expands

DC Snacks, the bicycle delivery service, has expanded to Georgetown.

The late-night delivery site expanded from George Washington University’s campus in early December to cover the Georgetown campus and neighborhood. Unlike buying refreshments at the traditional late-night convenience store, customers place orders online at DCSnacks, and a bicycle courier delivers the requested products from the company’s warehouse within 35 minutes.

The local convenience school is trying to appeal to school loyalty to keep business,

“I’m confident that students realize how much we do and how much we will improve with continued support,” said Balsamello, who is also a member of THE HOYA’s editorial board. “The three-minute walk to Leavey is worth keeping student money in the Georgetown student body rather than a GW alum’s pocket.”

Healthy (no pun intended) competition is always a welcome thing. And DC Snacks is hiring.

Three Bike commute

This guy has one of the more unique commutes (utilizing three bicycles) that I've heard of. I considered a two bicycle commute but finally bought a folding bike instead. I've always dreamed of commuting using this. I'm not sure where a folding bike would fit on a shell.

Bicycle No. 1 gets me from home in Cheverly to the Bladensburg waterfront, where I launch a 24-foot shell for the seven-mile row to the Capital Rowing Club dock at 11th Street SE. Then I ride one mile on Bike No. 2 to my job at the Library of Congress. At day's end, I take Metro to the Cheverly Station and ride home on Bike No. 3. The following day, the steps are reversed. This has been my routine for seven years.

Washington Post Bike Map

I'd never seen this until now, but the Post put together a nice like bike and foot trail map (for DC at least) as part of their "Guide" section. It includes proposed and unopened trails though, so that could be confusing for those hoping to ride the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail (for example)